Awards were given in separate categories for Big Budget and Low Budget Trailers, and even a category for Trailer Least Likely to Sell a Book! The award, named for the iconic white whale was created by the publisher Melville House in New York, and will consist of a trophy and bragging rights.

In the past few months I have come across a phenomenon seemingly new to the world (although YouTube searches date some from years ago): trailers for books. Speaking obviously to savvy web denizens (as these are never aired on TV), this media-hybrid provokes some interesting questions. First to my mind is how publicists reconcile the trailer version of the book with the trailer version of the movie as so many books are now made into screenplays (or whether this concern even enters their mind).

In my experience, book trailers tend to avoid direct screen shots of characters, perhaps to let the imagination do its job, or perhaps this as a product of cinematic foresight. Such is the case with the trailer for Pynchon’s Inherent Vice (below) which, like the book, rambles on in a stoner’s foggy voice, and numerous others I have seen, such as Meyer’s The Host (which is slated to be turned into a movie), Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes (also below), and the award-winning The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak which has been turned into a movie already.

My second question is: why? Thomas Pynchon has a cult following and his books are highly anticipated by his followers. (And the same could be said for Meyer.) Why then does he, or his publishers, feel the need to create a trailer? Wouldn’t his devoted readers feel more comfortable with the traditional back-of-the-book summary, or New York Times book review?

What do you think?

(nota bene: The web is flooded with “fan-made” trailers as well and this is not to which I refer.)